Hoist the Jolly Roger! Rum, sodomy and the lash!

For obvious reasons I've categorized this as humour, but the phenomenon and the attached links are real. As diaried at DailyKos, a group of anti-progressive bloggers led by a "Dread Pundit Bluto" have organized under this banner in order to swarm and disrupt progressive blogs:

A new blog alliance called "The Pirate Fleet" or "Pirate Armada" (they've used both, and I don't understand the difference) has been swarming the comments at Progressive websites... The Pirate Fleet lists over thirty blogs, most of which carry the skull and crossbones icon of The Armada and its blogroll... They've been seen on Firedoglake and ThinkProgress...

From The Dread Pundit Bluto's blog:

The Pirate's Code

Matey, d'ye burn to carry the light of reason to the benighted libby masses at their own internet ports o' call? Have ye held yer fire and sheathed yer cutlass, knowin' that ye'd be swarmed by mindless moonbats chanting the Bushitlerburton mantra? Ye bin waitin' fer a better day.

Yarr, yer day is here.

Just sign on to The Pirate Fleet and ye be guaranteed t'have stout mates at yer back.

The Pirate Fleet will give ye yer targets and a crew o' fellow buccaneers to guard yer flanks whilst ye board the fat galleons o' the Leftie merchant fleet. All set up by email sose the lefties won't see yer comin'.

The Pirate's Code

As a buccaneer in The Pirate Fleet you are required to follow the Code. If you get banned from a Leftist site, let it be because they're afraid of your ideas; don't give them an excuse. Of course The Pirate Fleet will happily post about all unjustified bannings.

1. No unnecessary profanity or obscenity.
2. No personal insults or threats.
3. Stay on topic.
4. Tell no lies.
5. Back up your mates.
6. Pirate posting names are allowed, but not "sock puppets"*.

* Using a sock puppet means posting under two or more identities at the same time, in the same forum. It's cheating, and site moderators will be able to tell that you're doing it.

If you agree to abide by the Code and think that The Pirate Fleet is for you, send me an email at piratefleet@hotmail.com and tell me why you're a likely raider and include a link to a post or two you're proud of - we doesn't want any scurvy moonbat moles, ye ken? You'll get your targets via email, once a minimum number o' freebooters commits to a mission. Then we'll post about yer successful raids in the Fleet Dispatches, available to all the blogs in The Pirate Armada.

Bloggers who want to join The Pirate Armada are likewise bound by the Code, and must display the Armada icon (linking to this post) and maintain the armada blogroll.

Some may decry this phenomenon. But I welcome it, not least for its salutory effects upon global warming. As any devotee of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is aware,

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.